Grim Times for Gun Grabbers

I’ve already explained why leftists must be depressed about their failure to restrict private gun ownership.

They’ve suffered brutal electoral setbacks in Colorado, and more and more states have strengthened the right to keep and bear arms.

Moreover, it’s hard for them to claim their agenda is about safer streets when cops overwhelmingly reject the premises of the anti-gun zealots.

And they also have to deal with something very troubling that further undermines their campaign against the Second Amendment.

That troubling thing is facts and data.

Because the more information that we learn, the more evidence we have – as John Lott often reminds us – that more guns equal less crime.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Jason Riley peruses some new data from the FBI. Here are some key excerpts.

A new FBI report says that violent crime continues to fall nationwide, which might annoy liberals because gun purchases continue to rise. In the first six months of 2013, murders fell by nearly 7 percent, compared with the same period in 2012. Aggravated assaults fell by 6.6 percent, and robberies are down 1.8 percent. “All of the offenses in the violent crime category—murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, and robbery—showed decreases when data from the first six months of 2013 were compared with data from the first six months of 2012,” according to the FBI. Overall, violent crime in the U.S. fell by 5.4 percent. …The left likes to link violent crime to the proliferation of guns in the country, so it’s worth noting that the crime reductions described in the FBI report correlate with a steady increase in firearm sales.

But that’s not all.

It’s also worth noting that gun-ownership rates in the Midwest (39 percent) and South (50 percent) far exceed gun-ownership rates in the Northeast (22 percent), yet violent crime is down more in the Midwest and South than it is in the Northeast, according to the FBI statistics. And rural areas, where gun-ownership rates also are higher than average, saw a larger reduction in violent crime that metropolitan areas, where gun-ownership rates are lower than average. Not that gun-control zealots, who are so certain of a causal link between firearms and violent crime rates, care about such details.

Gee, what a surprise.

When more law-abiding people have guns, the bad guys are more skittish.

Hmmm…sounds like someone took the IQ test I devised for criminals and liberals.

But we have more good news.

It seems that Americans are not sheep meekly waiting to be fleeced of their constitutional freedom and liberties.

In Connecticut, where reprehensible politicians exploited a school shooting to impose restrictions on the Second Amendment, it appears that many citizens are – in effect – telling them to bugger off.

Here are some excerpts from a story in the Hartford Courant.

Everyone knew there would be some gun owners flouting the law that legislators hurriedly passed last April, requiring residents to register all military-style rifles with state police by Dec. 31. But few thought the figures would be this bad. By the end of 2013, state police had received 47,916 applications for assault weapons certificates, Lt. Paul Vance said. An additional 2,100 that were incomplete could still come in. That 50,000 figure could be as little as 15 percent of the rifles classified as assault weapons owned by Connecticut residents, according to estimates by people in the industry… And that means as of Jan. 1, Connecticut has very likely created tens of thousands of newly minted criminals — perhaps 100,000 people…who have broken no other laws.

This story makes me proud to be an American.

We’ve seen some polling data that shows there would be widespread civil disobedience if politicians tried to confiscate guns, but I wondered whether people would be more willing to acquiesce to preliminary steps such as the Connecticut registration plan.

So it’s great to see that tens of thousands of them are resisting.

P.S. As I’ve noted before, anyone who cares about this issue should read these observations from a genuine firearms expert.

And if you have left-wing friends, there are two posts that may convince them to be rational about guns. Justin Cronin explains here that restrictions on gun ownership undermined his ability to protect his family. And Jeffrey Goldberg looked at the evidence and concluded that guns make people safer.

P.P.S. If you simply want a laugh or two,  this funny video shows that our left-wing friends are incapable of understanding this topic.

For more gun control humor, check out this joke comparing California with other parts of America, this interview with a general is worth sharing (presumably an urban legend, but could be true), and here’s a t-shirt that I’m putting on my Christmas list.